Promotional two-pager

[Josef Assad]

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Roel Kluin wrote:
> Josef Assad wrote:
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> Hah, you afraid already?

Nope, not when I got a community looking over my shoulder. :)

> Actually, I don't know exactly who the audience is for this two-pager, but after
> reading it, I thought it was meant for companies developing hardware not yet
> supported in Linux.

Yep!

> So I was thinking, who is going to receive this mail and will he/she understand
> what this is about? Will it be clear that this is a beneficial deal?
> 
> The answer to my first question, I thought was probably a secretary, because they
> usually receive and sort mail. They may receive lots of adds, and try to separate
> it from important mail. We are making an offer that they can't refuse. We are
> offering quality development of drivers *for free*. Better make that message
> clear immediately  and not confuse or tire the reader or it will be thrown away -
> before the message is understood. Maybe you want to express this in the title,
> instead of the 'out of excuses' - which in my opinion is a bit too aggressive.
> How about 'An offer you can't refuse'.

Good, good! I was hoping I wasn't the only one dissatisfied with that
bit up there on the left. No harm in being more ostentatious about being
free, I agree. Let's try to think of a better slogan. I'm not convinced
"an offer you can't refuse" is it either.

I added a section to the wiki page where ideas for that slogan can be
dumped. It's on the same page, close to the top.

> We are not trying to sell Linux here. If that's the thought the secretary will get,
> then he/she may judge incorrectly that it is not worth the bother to read. We are 
> offering driver development by a team of expert kernel people without charge.

Drivers "for linux". I _do_ think we need to sell Linux itself a bit. If
there's an OS out there with fifteen users (Vista? :)  ) for which free
driver development is offered, I don't think they'd be interested even
being free of charge. OTOH, if the document is _too_ rah-rah then wade
in and weed out the excess; it _is_ a wiki and I assert no property
rights over that page :)

> The pictures and layout do the first trick: attract the reader, to get them
> to read. I like your layout. The pictures are nice and I like the subtle border
> around the text. Pictures can say many words and additionally attribute to the
> attractiveness. The key is a nice eye catcher. Maybe a 'supercomputer' running
> Linux?

Yeah, you're probably right. A beeg box with blinkenlights. Will see
what I can find.

> My experience is that people are lazy, don't want to read lots of text. People 
> usually read only the first few lines - if it looks promising enough. A little text
> is a little effort, and will be read more probably. Make it look clear, space is
> good. I do like the two columns.

I am known to over-write; I've pruned a bit. Hopefully nothing material.

> first line: 'a growing share on', not 'share of'? I may be incorrect, English is not
> my native language. skip the 'already' in the second line (the first line got one
> already)

Your English is better than the overwhelming majority of native
speakers. You're absolutely right.

> Fourth alinea: replace 'beginning decisions' by 'early' or 'initial decisions'

Or something like it. Yep.

> 2nd alinea after 'From kick-off to development'
> centuries of experience is too obviously an exaggeration (Linux only exists a few
> decades) make that decades.

Not really. If there's ten people with ten years of experience, that's
one century of accumulated aggregate experience. That's what
"accumulated" and "aggregated" are doing there.

> 3rd replace 'developer resources' by 'developers', the Project -> lowercase.
> vendor's-> vendors'

I capitalise "Project" to avoid confusion between the LDDP and the
individual project for a specific set of drivers.

> This is going to be their major issue btw: companies may not have elaborate
> documentation. therefore I added the 'sufficient' to show that it doesn't have to be
> perfect, rather workable.

Yeah, that's a very good catch Roel. Rephrased.

> I think it's going in the right direction, but some sentences are still a bit long,
> try be to the point where possible. Maybe you want to alter some of the titles

Might help if I could understand what sucks about the current headings.

> Hope it helps :)

Very much, bedankt!

Check the wiki diffs to see what was edited.




JA

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jabber ID: josef.assad at gmail.com

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